A big thanks to A Ed for something he said in pre race chat that suddenly made my setup probs a lot easier.
I was moaning about the fact that I could not get the E-Type to turn and was even understeering into the wall on the long curved "straight". Ed commented that he had set his steering for 900 degrees ( possibly a joke, but it made me think!!). In GPL the steering adjustment is all about steering "ratio" i.e a steering ratio of 5:1 magnifies small inputs from my wheel into quite large movements of the steering rack on the car. So, I had been lowering the steering value in PnG to get more response from the front end....
just as I would in GPL. But of course what I was actually doing was limiting how much lock I could apply !! The word "muppet" springs to mind.
I upped the PnG steering parameter to 30 ( from 5) and low and behold the car does turn corners
.
To say that it transformed my experience would be an understatement. Suddenly, I was able to attack corners and correct slides.
The race went far better as a result and I was hoping to hold on to 2nd spot when Jarda started to close up at the end of the race . Ed was far away in front by then as I had eased back in the middle of the race scared that my medium tyres would wear out. It was only when Jarda got uncomfortably close that I realised I still had plenty of "green" left in the tyres with only 6 laps to go. I was able to up my pace and pull a small gap until I just clipped the armco at T2 and it pulled the nose around just too far to opp lock out of it
Jarda swept past and went 4 secs clear as I straightened things up.
I was more than pleased with being able to close the gap to zero as we started the last lap and tried a rather optimistic move down the inside at T1, but could not quite get it turned in soon enough to undercut Jarda and exchanged a small paint sample with him on the apex.
That was my last chance as I stalled the engine as I let Jarda regain his place ( stalling is something else I have to get used to in PnG!) and Jarda easily kept his 2nd spot.
Hopefully, tonights little revelation might translate into some more satisfying laptimes for yours truly in future